Ted Lasso - Season Three: A Review - Feminized and Unfunny

****THIS REVIEW REVEALS PLOT POINTS!!! THIS IS TECHNICALLY NOT A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!****

My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. This once great show is now truly awful.

Season one of Ted Lasso premiered on the fledgling streaming service Apple TV+ back in August of 2020, a very toxic, turbulent and tumultuous time as the U.S. presidential election between Trump and Biden was kicking into high gear.

The amusing show about a good-natured simpleton from Middle America thrown into the cutthroat swamp of high stakes British football became a phenomenon for the sole reason that it was relentlessly benign in a culture growing more aggressively malignant by the moment.

Ted Lasso, both the show and the character, was like a cool breeze on a sweltering day as its optimism was a satisfying reprieve from the suffocating negativity that had, and has, come to dominate American discourse.

The first season was crisp, concise and comedically coherent. It featured a charming, Emmy-winning performance from Jason Sudeikis as the fish-out-of-water title character, and also from an ensemble cast portraying a wide array of amusing soccer misfits.

Unfortunately, the show fell into the trap of believing all the “nice-guy” hype surrounding it and as a result lost its way on season two, which premiered in July of 2021. Gone were the numerous obstacles Ted had to face in season one, like a boss yearning for his failure, and in their place came nothing but vacuous soft smiles and vapid platitudes.

As bad as season two was, it pales in comparison to the atrocity that is season three, which premiered on March 15, 2023 and is supposedly the series finale.

To be as succinct as possible, Ted Lasso season three is a steaming pile of shite.

Season three feels like it was written by a group of liberal, Los Angeles, wine moms who simply can’t comprehend anyone disagreeing with their insipid, insidious and ideologically impotent beliefs, and who ban anyone who dare do such a hateful and hurtful thing.

The show’s infectiously benign nature featured in season one is now long gone, replaced by phony and flaccid politically correct posturing that is egregiously unfunny and frankly repulsive for its shameless pandering.

All of the male characters are now completely castrated, as is all of the conflict and therefore comedy. Gay themes, women’s empowerment and immigration politics take center stage, while comedy exits stage left. Gay story lines or political topics would be fine for the show to explore if there were actual comedy to extract from them, but conflict is necessary for comedy and season three of Ted Lasso is deathly allergic to any and all conflict.

For example, the gay relationships on display are embraced whole-heartedly by every single character with no exceptions. The working-class Brits and the third-world immigrants on the AFC Richmond roster not only accept but celebrate their gay teammate instantaneously…how realistic. The only holdout among the team is because the gay player lied, not because he’s gay. No players even good-naturedly tease the gay player, never mind torment him. Ted Lasso even gives a speech saying basically that being accepting of the gay player isn’t enough…you have to actively affirm his sexual preference.

Then there’s the gay relationship public relations tart Keely (Juno Temple) gets in to with her female venture capitalist boss Jack (Jodi Balfour). First off, it’s very odd that neither of Keely’s ex-lovers, Jamie and Roy, notice her new sexual orientation or comment on it at all.

In addition, if Jack were a man, she’d be easy to peg as a sexual predator and asshole, but because she’s a lesbian no one bats an eye to her controlling and predatory behavior.

Counter to that, Rupert (Anthony Head), former owner of AFC Richmond and ex-husband to its current owner Rebecca (Hannah Waddington), is a philandering, low-life piece of shit and that is made abundantly clear as the show goes out of its way to punish and humiliate him. What makes a rich lech like Rupert different than Jack? He’s using his money and power to sexually exploit women…just like Jack…but Rupert has a penis which apparently makes him the devil.

Ted Lasso is infected with a virulent misandry and repugnant male-phobia as it seemingly can’t do anything but hate and ridicule men. All of the male characters are weak-kneed caricatures of what faux feminists think men should be, as opposed to what they really are.

For example, most real men (but certainly not all) would accept their gay teammate, but they would also relentlessly bust his balls…and the gay teammate would feel accepted because his buddies were busting his balls like they bust everybody else’s balls. This is how actual men behave around one another and communicate with one another.

And then there’s the ridiculous immigration garbage. Sam (Toheeb Jimoh), a Nigerian player on Richmond, gets into a Twitter kerfuffle with some British politician over turning away boats of African immigrants. You think the working-class British players on the team might have some different opinions on immigration than Sam? You think Jamie Tarrt (Phil Dunster), the Manchester-born, blue-collar boy who is thrilled to play for the English national team, might want to tell Sam to shut the fuck up and go back to Nigeria – the country he so desperately wants to represent in the World Cup? You think a real football rough guy like Roy Kent might think “England for the English” and might get in Sam’s face over it?

A clash between Sam and Jamie over immigration might actually be really funny, since neither one of them are particularly bright (poor Sam seems mildly retarded as all he ever does is smile). Instead, the show just has Sam’s restaurant trashed by supposed white supremacists and then the whole team comes together to clean it up. How hysterically funny. Just kidding…it isn’t.

The worst character of all is team owner Rebecca, played with nauseous self-righteousness by Emmy winner Hannah Waddingham. Rebecca is no longer the villain – because it is forbidden for women to be villains on Ted Lasso, instead she is now a picture of feminist power…yet does little more than smile every two seconds like a brain-damaged toddler.

That Rebecca, who only owns the team because she was a bartender who fucked the married owner – Rupert – who she then divorced and took for half his fortune, is held up as a paragon of modern feminist virtue and entrepreneurial verve is one of the more unintentionally funny things in the entire show. That the big conclusion to Rebecca and Keely’s stories – is that they decide to start an AFC Richmond Women’s soccer team, made me laugh out loud for its impotence, idiocy and desperate pandering. As an aside…the only thing in the world worse than women’s soccer…is women’s basketball.

What isn’t funny about Ted Lasso is poor Ted Lasso, who is now reduced to just blurting out his inane, folksy words of wisdom like a coked-up Tony Robbins with Tourette’s. Sudeikis is obviously mailing it in at this point and his Lasso is as lackluster as it is deeply depressing.

What is even more bizarre than its total lack of comedy and humor is that season three of Ted Lasso makes virtually no sense in terms of storylines.

Nate the “wunderkid” (Nick Mohammed), has a story arc that is so incoherent it boggles the mind. The same is true of alleged tough guy Roy Kent, played by Brett Goldstein, who is as believable as a tough guy as Richard Simmons. Both Roy and Jamie Tartt were two of the more interesting characters at the start of the show and season three turns them into eunuchs and then takes a gigantic, sloppy shit right on top of them leaving behind an odious mess.

To be clear, I absolutely fucking hated Ted Lasso season three. FUCKING HATED IT. Part of why I hated it is because I liked season one so much. But after season one all the male characters got castrated and all the funny went right out of the show.

If you hate men and hate to laugh yet love soft smiles accompanied by gentle guitar and piano music, then season three of Ted Lasso is definitely for you. If you don’t…then Ted Lasso is not for you and you should avoid it at all costs as it will only infuriate you with its cornucopia of feminized anti-comedy.

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